


The Artist and The Vagabond

by zealousprince



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: First War, Light Moments in Dark Times, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-17
Updated: 2012-04-17
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:06:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zealousprince/pseuds/zealousprince
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the summer of ’79.  Sirius wanders, and finds Remus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Artist and The Vagabond

  
**_The Artist and the Vagabond_ **   


It is the summer of ’79. It is unusually warm and dry. Harry has not yet been born.

Sirius wanders the sun-swept streets alone. He has some experience navigating Muggle London, having been here on several occasions with James, Lily, and Remus – Peter had had no interest. He knows his way well enough to let himself drift, letting instinct’s inexorable pull take him where it may.

It smells of brick and limestone on this half-familiar street, and of water and mildew, and of tea leaves, and of salt and spice and sunshine, and of oil and cobblestone and–

–charcoal. It is a bohemian district, bustling and delightful with people of all ages and sizes. Muggles, happy, blissful, unaware, colourful as birds, and milling like paupers. Sirius envies them vaguely.

He slips his hands into his pockets and walks like a vagabond, blending into the afternoon crowd with practiced ease. He is a ghost, he is a vision, he is a phantom slipping between the shadows on the cobblestones. He is innocuous and forgettable: invisible without a charm. The Order has taught him this.

So lost is he in the crowd that he starts unnecessarily when he sees someone he knows, like it is a sign of being discovered, but then the city washes over him and he is once again hidden. He examines the familiar face from afar, but cannot recall who the person is or why he is so pleased to see him. He moves closer, eyes alight and alive with curiosity, but the subject of his scrutiny does not notice him yet, so intent is he on his own endeavour: the clear bright-eyed face of a young woman, charmingly tilted and delicately shaded in willow charcoal.

The portrait is exquisite, but the artist is what catches Sirius’ eye again. He wears plain clothing in sandy colours, and is rather nondescript himself, but there is something about the shape of his charcoal-dirty hands and the slope of his shoulders that is at once mesmerizing and comforting. They remind him of Butterbeer, and forest musk, and the warmly lit common room that existed for him far before this strange sunlit street ever did.

The street artist finishes the portrait with a final finicky scratch of the charcoal stick. He stares at it, then at the pretty model, then at the portrait again. Then he sighs, and smiles, and swivels the easel around to reveal his work. She exclaims over it, and the artist smiles wider, pleased, and sprays the single page with a fixative. He accepts the small payment. It is too small, Sirius thinks, for the amount of talent displayed on the page. It is like giving away a precious gift without ever knowing its true cost.

The girl moves away admiring her newest acquisition, and the artist sighs with relief and stretches, raising his sunburnt forearms above his head. There is the barest sliver of skin visible beneath the fluttering hem of his shirt, but then that too is gone, like a dream, and as reality floods back into the afternoon crowd, so too does Sirius’ awareness, and with it the awareness that the artist has noticed him too.

Sirius has no fear of being recognized in this Muggle crowd. He wears a glamour as a necessary precaution, and luck and arrogance do the rest. Because of this, he feels it safe to smile at the artist, and to nod his head. The artist looks at him for the space of a beat.

The artist says, “Hello.”

Sirius is pleased, obscurely, and is about to say an uncomplicated hello back when something stops him: a sudden, stunning realization in his throat.

The artist blinks, and it is Remus.

Remus in the thick of Muggle London and wearing a complicated glamour spell is still Remus, still the person he is currently leasing a flat with, still the person he has spent the past seven years eating with and going to class with and protecting against the worse of his judgement. Yet Sirius had not known of this brilliant inclination of Remus’ for the art of portraiture, still less of its use on this humble cobbled street.

Thinking hard, Sirius does recall a certain artistic direction on Remus’ part. It is something subtle and restrained but definitely there, hidden in the old-fashioned flourishes in his schoolboy handwriting, or in every precious-precise stroke of the quill that had built the walls of Hogwarts on their map. But, Sirius had never suspected that Remus’ clandestine fondness for sharp stylish flourishes and smooth subtle line work would lead to something like this. Truth be told, it is a secret he would have liked to be privy to, and the fact that he was not leaves a bruise-like tenderness on the inside of his ribs.

Despite all these thoughts, Sirius manages to smile like nothing is wrong in the world, and bids Remus goodbye. He tries to not feel Remus’ eyes on the nape of his neck as he walks away, and melts into the crowd like sunlight.

=====

 

Sirius returns to their flat in the late afternoon, washes the smell of ancient cobblestones from his skin, and begins to make supper. Remus arrives soon after, in different clothes.

Supper is a silent affair, but then it usually is, because for Remus, it is a time for catching up on personal, non-Order reading, while for Sirius, the partaking of food is simply sacrosanct.

This is why, once evening blankets the city and the only light left burning is Remus’ desk lamp, Sirius knows exactly what he should say in order to question Remus about his recent whereabouts. It is perfectly and painstakingly scripted in his head, down to the commas. It is absolutely foolproof.

Except that Sirius does not start this conversation at all, and instead bids Remus good night, which gets him a smile – not an embarrassed smile, or a smile of horrified realization, but a regular, everyday Remus-smile. Sirius smiles back easily. Then he goes to bed, and he sleeps.

 

=====

  
Three days later, it is still warm. The sun shines, the crowd bustles, and a small café on the corner makes excellent tea cakes. Sirius approaches the street artist with a glass of café lemonade in hand.

The artist looks at him for some time, then he accepts the glass with a smile. His fingers make whorl-shaped smudges on the glass, little works of art in the shape of the universe. He drinks deeply, and returns the glass with the air of a man sated.

The artist says, “Hello again.”

Sirius swallows, and smiles confidently. “Hi.”

A boy and his father approach. The boy is excited and wants his portrait. The artist obliges.

Sirius waves to the artist and steps back, and like a river the crowd begins to flow back around him. The artist – Remus – looks up briefly, and waves with the tips of his charcoal-dusted fingers. It is a familiar gesture. Sirius walks away to return the glass.

They did not need to exchange more words that day. It is enough.

 

=====

  
It is two days later, and it is a week later, and it is three. Again and again and again, they meet, to greet and discuss and sometimes, merely, to look. The meetings are pleasant, friendly, and warm, and although there is ample room for it – as there has been for months, and years – neither makes the move the other wants.

There is time enough, Sirius thinks. There will always be time. And if even that time runs out, there will still be the Remus back at the flat, the Remus who smiles gently and who reads too much and who sleeps too little and who always keeps his hands very, very clean.

And Sirius thinks, in the middle of the night, as the moon floats and swells outside his bare bedroom window, that if he can just have this Remus with him, then everything will be all right. He can watch to him pad softly around the flat in his stocking feet, and listen to him breathe and whisper words to himself as he reads, and it is enough. Even if he can never watch him draw again, it is enough.

It is enough for all time. Sirius convinces himself of this.

 

=====

  
And yet, Sirius finds himself so enamoured by this new Remus, by this humble street artist who sits on a weed-speckled street in between Order missions, that on the day Sirius emerges from the crowd to see him and he is not there, he feels a pain deep in the softness of his gut.

All coherent thought leaves him for a moment too long, and so distraught is he that the glamour almost slips off him, but Sirius manages to cling to it and instantly, his thoughts resurface. He takes in a breath, lets it out slowly, and feels foolish.

Sirius leaves the Muggle crowd and goes about his Order business of collecting certain documents from a certain someone. He Floos the documents directly to Dumbledore. He stands in the kitchen for a long while, palms pressed together, fingertips pressed against his lips, as he gathers his thoughts (scattered, some of them still stuck between the cobblestones of their dusty summer street). Then, he disapparates to the forest shack where Remus is preparing himself for the long night ahead.

 

=====

  
James arrives after Sirius, and Peter arrives after him, late enough to be noticed but not so late that he requires forgiveness. They grin and tease and call each other names, as Remus watches and smiles the wan smile of the impending full moon.

It is Sirius who senses the coming of the moon first, just a few moments after Remus does. He transforms into Padfoot without another word, and James and Peter follow suit. Remus smiles at them one last time, and reaches down to scratch Padfoot’s ears. Padfoot gives in where Sirius has not, and licks his fingertips just once. They taste like soap and tea and charcoal.

Remus sits in a corner of the shack to wait, unmoving. Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs sit across from him, quelling their animal personae for the time being and staring out with sharp human minds. Outside, it is moonrise.

 

=====

  
Three days later, Sirius brings the street artist more lemonade, and a single flower purchased with Muggle money from a Muggle shop. The change tinkles like music in his pocket.

The artist looks up at him with tired eyes, and smiles.

Sirius says, “I missed you.”

The artist says, like he does not understand, “I was here all along.”

Sirius does not clarify. Instead, he asks him to dinner.

The artist gazes at him for a long time, then he says, carefully, “I’m expected at home.”

Sirius says, “Of course. How about Saturday?”

And this time, the artist says yes.

Sirius touches him on the shoulder, lightly, with his fingertips. Then he goes home, and takes a nap, and when he awakes, he begins making supper for Remus.

 

=====

  
They meet, the artist and the vagabond, at half past eight. The small café on the corner is nearly empty, although they have an evening menu and the food is excellent. The artist scans the dessert menu first then puts it hastily away for later, without realizing that the vagabond has seen and is smiling knowingly into his palm.

When they are finished, they walk, not touching but almost, until they reach the place where the dust has settled, star-like, between the cobblestones. The vagabond can pinpoint the exact spot where the artist sets up his easel on every other day. The artist is amused, but then again, the vagabond is usually amusing.

The moon is an imperfect sigil in the sky, pensive and ponderous and not at all threatening tonight. It slips away across the velvet heavens as the streets slip away beneath their feet, and the night breathes in joyous symphony as they walk together.

They are together, and it is enough.

The vagabond walks the artist to his door, and stands behind him on the step. He should feel foolish, but he does not.

The artist turns, and looks at him, and bites his lip. He is always the one who worries.

The vagabond steps closer to the door, and in a gesture both meek and bold, kisses the tips of his own fingers, and presses them against the artist’s lips.

The artist blinks, and the glamour falls. It is Remus.

And suddenly, the vagabond realizes that it is not enough anymore to simply stand by and watch, to simply gaze from afar at this man who has been beside him for so long and who has never been so close until this very moment. Perhaps it has never been enough at all.

Remus says, “Sirius.”

And the vagabond kisses him, gently, as gently as the moon fades and shifts out of the sky, as gently as the dust motes begin to float and shimmer as the light of dawn filters up from the bottom of the world.

And Remus kisses him back.

And they part, slowly, to breathe.

Sirius leans close to Remus, one shoulder against the door. Remus’ sunburnt forearms brush against his sides, and his sunburnt fingers sift through his hair.

Sirius says, “You never asked my name.”

And Remus looks at him, and smiles, and seems to make up his mind.

Remus says, “I didn’t have to.”

They touch, and linger. Then, they go inside. The sun rises.

It is the summer of ’79. Their friends are alive and so are they. The war is here and they are in it but it has not yet reached them. They have time, still. Better yet, they have each other.

And for now, it is enough.

 

  


**The End**  


**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010 using a leftover prompt from the R/S Career Fest on LJ. Thanks to everyone who commented and appreciated over there! :)


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